Hecate

Set amid the European community in an unspecified North African country, a colony on the verge of nationalism just before the war. And colonized is what happens to a French diplomat, Julien Rochelle, when he meets the mysterious beauty Clothilde de Watteville. Schmid 's favorite axiom, that love is projection, never had such a thorough airing. Is Clothilde really the wife of a French official now holed up in Siberia? Or is she Hecate, goddess of black magic and devourer of the Arab boys she meets far from the European quarter? Only our projections know for sure; for the rest, she is a "woman looking out into the night." Drawn from a novel by Paul Morand, who based the main character on his wife Helene, Schmid's film achieves an atmosphere of magic in which psychological credibility is not so much absent as irrelevant-a film that distances itself from the drama it invokes, perhaps as the elusive Clothilde turns her back on the madness she provokes.

Cast

Bernard Giraudeau Julien Rochelle Lauren Hutton Clotilde Jean Bouise le consul de France Jean-Pierre Kalfon Massard Gérard Desarthe Le colonel de Watteville Juliette Brac Miss Henry

Patrick Thursfield L'Anglais

Suzanne Thau La tenancière du bordel

Raja Reinking La fille du bar

Mustapha Tsouli Ibrahim

Teco Celio Le capitaine Berta

Rose-Marie Schneider

Metadata from the source database.